Why do Harbeth speakers have such a cult following

Alan Shaw really puts things into basic, stark perspective.

I'd like to hear a discussion with Alan and some of the designers from Magico, Tidal, Wilson, Kharma etc, that'd be interesting eh?

I think a lot of those designers wouldn't be willing to go head to head with Alan Shaw regardless of what you think of his speakers.

I'm not a Harbeth owner, but I think yer right.

I owned a pair of Harbeth 40.1's about a year and a half ago.....I purchased them demo from a Harbeth dealer and had briefly listened to them before I bought. The dealer who I had purchased them from said that they may be / are a little too big for your room. ( 14x 16x 7 )I bought them anyway ...hey these were the 40.1's !!!!I listened to them for about 6 months and sold them for just about what I had bought them for. Three things happened here; the dealer was right as they did overload the room, they were very good on acoustic music and vocals....not on any electric blues or jazz and as you will see from my previous post on these speakers - they just did not get up and boogie !!!! I would not say dull - they did not involve me - but it was large in part due to the room and the music that I play 80% of the time. So, if you do have a larger room, have nice electronics and like to play acoustic music or vocal oriented music - these might be it ! Also, when Mr. Shaw noted that speaker wire does not make a difference on the performance of these speakers.....I did my own little experiement - and guess what - they did !

I was really captivated by the sound of my HL5's at first, but over time there was a sameness or homogenized aspect to their sound. One genre sounded like the next. Very polite, not much personality.